polar bodies at the lab, and performed in vitro polar body fertilizations. Subsequently, in December of 1995, Jozef implanted numerous fertilized ova back into Marie's womb, four of which ultimately developed into viable fetuses. Later, he removed all the embryos in a cesarean section and secretly installed them in special gestation vessels at the Negev Institute.
“Jozef attempted to explain away Marie's incision as an emergency appendectomy. But I saw through him and he finally opened up to me with the entire story. To my eternal shame, I must admit to you that, after my initial shock and disbelief, I, too, was lured into his madness.
“The thoughts of having my Marie back, of being able to look into her eyes, to hear her laugh, to hold her close to me, normal, healthy, happy again-my angel child-it was too much for me to resist! And I could not help but support Jozef in his plans. Although I must also admit to you that I lived in constant fear of God's retribution, which I feel is now coming to pass.”
“Excuse me, Anne,” Anke interrupted, “but how could the same hormones and artificial gestation methods developed for cattle be used on human embryos? And wouldn't the laboratory personnel detect the difference between human and bovine fetuses?”
“Jozef had all that figured out, Anke. For his special vessels, he altered the endocrinology, changed the growth hormones from bovine to human, adjusted the nutrients, proteins and medicine contents accordingly. He substituted new computer programs modified specifically for human subjects.
“With his authority as a director of the institute, he was able to restrict access to the vessels. We knew we'd have to be extremely calculating to gestate even one of our developing daughters-or granddaughters perhaps-to adulthood without detection. But we were willing to take that chance.”
Feldman stopped her again. “Did I understand you correctly that your husband used growth hormones and intended to artificially gestate your daughter's fetuses all the way to adulthood?”
“Correct.”
“But why? Why not simply remove the healthiest baby at the equivalent of nine months and raise her normally?”
“We were prepared to do that, if necessary, but we faced a problem that even Jozef's resourcefulness couldn't solve: time.
“I was thirty-seven years old and Jozef a year older when we had Marie in 1968. We were sixty-two when she was injured and sixty-six by the time Jozef introduced Marie's embryos into the gestation vessels. Jozef was not in the best of health. We were simply too old. There was not time enough left for us to raise a child safely to adulthood in the conventional manner.”
“But I should think,” Feldman persisted, “you'd be faced with raising an infant in an adult's body.”
“That brings us to the next, most complicated aspect of Jozef's strategy. And here, we enter again into proprietary research areas that must be kept in confidence.”
Feldman set aside his pen and pad once more.
“This is where Jozef drew upon his greatest expertise. Not only did he wish to accelerate Marie's physical growth, he wanted to do the same for her mind.
“The idea and mechanism for doing this came to Jozef several years earlier from a series of experiments at the university. As I mentioned before, Jozef had been working with a team of researchers developing biomicrochip circuitry, a type of artificial bridge to carry nerve impulses across severed areas of the central nervous system, helping to restore limb movement in the treatment of paralysis.
“Independently, he'd also conducted tests on some alternative applications of this neurochip technology. Instead of neuromuscular cells, he focused on brain tissue, which is also a form of nerve tissue. However, he knew that regular brain cells-unlike nerve cells-would not grow onto the artificial chip surface because, after birth, brain cells soon lose their ability to multiply.
“So, Jozef began experimenting with fetal subjects. Sheep. And the receptivity of fetal brain tissue proved to be even better than with neuromuscular applications. By implanting the chip early during fetal development, Jozef found that the brain cells would readily grow onto the surface and integrate with its circuitry.
“More interestingly, he found that the neural brain cells would actually adapt to the circuitry and learn how to respond to it. The mesh of neural cells that formed on the chip would act like an informational placenta, allowing input to permeate between the chip and the neural passages of the brain. The brain could incorporate input from the chips as if they were a natural, organic, sensory element of the nervous system.
“All the circuitry of the neural chips was hardwired. Micro-fine wires from the chip would extend from inside the brain and out the skull, gather into one strand, exit through a port in the back of the fetus's head, and then out through the mother ewe's abdomen. By sending mild electrical impulses into select circuits in the neurochip, Jozef could artificially stimulate and precisely identify which areas of the brain were connected to each specific circuit.
“Depending on where the chip had been inserted, the electrical impulses could create, for example, isolated muscle responses in the tail, or the right forelimb. Through trial and error, Jozef would eventually learn exactly which nerves controlled what functions.
“Once, in a whimsical effort to demonstrate his results to me, Jozef played a tape of a John Philip Sousa march he dearly loved and made one poor little lamb dance a silly, repetitive step across his mother's womb.” Mrs. Leveque hummed a few bars and the familiar tune was immediately recognizable to Feldman, if not by name.
“Wouldn't this type of procedure,” Feldman inquired, “implanting a foreign object in the brain and shooting electricity through it, damage the brain?”
“Not that we could determine. The brain is very tolerant to intrusive procedures during the fetal stage. Also, the brain functions on electrochemical impulses any way, you see, as its natural means of transmitting messages. Sheep embryos that were allowed to go to term after the implantation seemed perfectly normal, healthy and active after birth.”
“What became of the experiments?” Anke asked.
“Sadly, it was just at this time that Marie's accident happened and Jozef abruptly discontinued his work. Of course, you can see how he would have hoped to use this wonderful science to help Marie. But even if it were possible for her adult brain cells to integrate with the neurochip, so much of her brain tissue had been destroyed that, mentally, it was very unlikely she could ever be normal.”
Once more, the emotions welled in Mrs. Leveque and her eyes brimmed with tears. “But, God forgive him, my husband was an incredibly stubborn man, and simply wouldn't believe Marie was lost to us. He wouldn't allow her to be disconnected from feeding tubes. And he wouldn't give up on his obsession that somehow, he, with all his resourceful ingenuity and miraculous technologies, would someday devise a way to reverse our tragedy.
“It was this obsession that drove him to implant the neurochip devices into our daughter embryos. That was his answer to our time limitations. He would use these neurochips to transmit information from computer cyber- systems directly into their developing brains. ‘Intelligence infusion’ he called it.
“Jozef would build their knowledge as they gestated. Accelerate their minds to keep pace with the growth of their bodies. This was our best and only hope for preparing our girls in time to cope with a world that, in a manner of speaking, had already victimized them once before.”
“I'm a little fuzzy on how the artificial learning process works,” Feldman confessed.
“Unlike in his sheep experiments earlier,” Mrs. Leveque explained, “Jozef had devised new, far more sophisticated neurochips. When our daughter fetuses grew large enough, Jozef selected three of the four and implanted a dozen neurochips into the audio, visual, spatial and thought-processing centers of each child's brain.
“And in one of the girls, he also implanted a different type of neurochip into a separate, cognitive receptor site. This was a brand-new chip he'd developed. It included a unique microtransmitter-receiver, capable of both receiving and sending communication signals. The device was completely untested and was conceived as almost an afterthought. Jozef's intent was to provide this one, special child with a continuing source of communication, input and output, even after birth. Through this chip, her intellectual capacities would be unlimited, powered by the unending source of natural chemical electricity of her brain.
“With the two daughters who had only the regular neurochips, you see, their input wiring would have had to be disconnected during the birth process. After which, their neurochips would no longer function.
“The last remaining embryo we decided to leave completely unaltered so that if anything went wrong with the highly risky procedures, we would still, God willing, be blessed with one, healthy adult daughter. Infantile of
